Before They Are Dead
by Stranger At The Gate
Summary: The world is at war, they stand at the precipice. a warlord from the galaxies edge marches on the planet. broken apart in the first strike the team will reunite to lead a daring raid against the invaders. AU, OC rate M for violence
1. Chapter 1

Cold.

Deep down in the cold, cold ground Great Kester lay dead.

Once, she led armies and left conquered worlds burning in her wake.

No more.

Once, she wore a crown of iron fangs and all would pray her name and beg her favor.

No more.

Once, she bowed to her Father's hand and stood at his side with brothers cast in her great shadow.

No more.

Now far in the grave all Kester did was drift in the sleep eternal.

Yet even in death, she still dreamed of war.

This is why _they_ needed her. Far above her barrow on the tiny blue moon invaders descended. Their vast engines casting light so bright is looked as if the stars were falling.

From the dry dirt, they pulled her and stitched her broken mind back together. In heavy chains forged in the heart of a dying star they brought her before a towering throne and threw her to the marble ground while a court of shadows encircled her.

She bared her gleaming teeth and against the weight of the sun-forged steel stood and tore out the throat of the guard who had thrown her. She spat bitter acrid blood, she knew the taste well. More bodies moved to restrain her but from the throne came a voice as deep as thunder and filled with command.

"This is her?" the voice echoed rolled around the vaulted ceiling. A voice she had heard before, she smiled and turned her head to the silhouette on the high throne and considered the red burning eyes that stared back at her. _Darkseid_

"Tis her your, Grace," replied a tall narrow figure beside the throne.

"She does not kneel?" asked the red eyed giant.

"I do not kneel," hissed Kester.

"what if you were made to kneel?" said a figure to her left. A hunched monster with a mane of black hair and a sharp drooling maw.

Kester looked down at the dead guard and shrugged, "Many have tried," she relied evenly, "And I do not kneel," She smiled again letting the ogre see her blood smeared teeth, see her mad gold glowing eyes. The challenge clear. The ogre growled and the guards around her inched closer.

"Kalibak." the throne whispered a steady command, the ogre glanced to it and then stepped back into the shadows. There was the sound of groaning metal and then a slow rhythmic thudding as the giant descended to Kester. Around her in a sudden clash of polished armor and rustle of exotic fabrics the court knelt to their lord.

As he took each heavy step he spoke to Kester. "I am not the vengeful kind. I do not waste my time on such trivial matters," His eyes burned like shouldering coals, "Unlike your father I have always looked beyond the defeats to the grander victory at large," she felt the heat now, pressing against her skull she gritted teeth and held the giant's stare, "But you. You angered me."

He stopped, looming over her in full battle regalia and held up one iron-clad paw, "five score of my own blood. Butchered for the pot. Drowned in the mud. Burned at the skate. Tossed to the void. Left to rot in the sun." the pain became too much and Kester collapsed to one knee shaking as the pressure began to crush her, but against the agony she turned her head up and smiled with a mad fire in her eyes.

"They squealed at the end," she whispered as blood trickled from her nose, "Like little pigs, they screamed and squealed." The giant held her stare a moment longer then turned in a swift motion and the pain vanished in that instance.

"I would see you hung from the highest tower, your guts laid bare, your heart cleaved beating from your chest and unleash such terrors upon your wretched flesh that the stars themselves would cry out in fear!" he roared at her in tones more like thunder than voice. The shadows cowered from the anger of the demon.

And then he leaned down to her and spoke in softer tones, "But I need you." she frowned up at him, confused.

In the space above them a hologram burst to life. A red orb slowly turning in the air, land and sea clear on its pale surface and tiny glimmering satellites orbiting the world. Darkseid closed his hands behind his back and gazed up at the planet with a strange mix of hatred and…admiration.

"Earth," said the warmonger, "Indigenous population: The Human Race," he almost spat the name.

"Primitives," said Kester, "What interest do you have in them?"

Darkseid turned to her, "You and the Earthlings have much in common," his eyes flared briefly, "Your ability to resist the inevitable is impressive. Many times, I have sent my armies forth and none succeeded," the giant stared round at his court who cowered further back from his blistering eyes. "You will take the planet for me."

"Why would I do that?" she almost laughed, "I am betrayed by Father, but you are still the Adversary. My first Enemy and my last," she spat a gob of blood at his feet.

Darkseid smiled at her and it unsettled her to her very core, "I am not Vengeful," he explained. "But you, Bright Kester, first daughter of High Father, betrayed at the height of your rise, Vengeance is all you have left. Take the Earth for me and I will give you your heart's desire," he loomed above her and offered down a single open palm, "I Darkseid of Apokolips do swear this."

She considered breaking his hand, tearing his throat out or anything except taking what he offered. But then she remembered the knives in her back, watching her ships burn away in orbit and hearing her dear Brothers voices whispering to her as they pushed her into the grave.

 _They cheer loudly for you, beloved sister,_ their cruel smiles, _Father says too loudly…_

Her jaw set hard and she turned her eyes up, feeling the chains give way. She reached out and took the open hand. Vengeance then, best served cold and slick with blood.

"To earth then," she muttered.


	2. Chapter 2

He remembered standing on the roof of their tower looking up at the storm that raged over the city. Lightning danced between the black masses and lit their bodies with brief flashes of scorching light. A wind, warm and strange, prickled against his skin.

Something was wrong.

His head had felt heavy and sticky. He thought it was just a cold.

He didn't know.

Raven was talking about migraines, he remembered Garfield holding her, the concern on his face lit briefly by a flicker of lightning.

"You alright," he was whispering.

"I don't know," she whispered back as the thunder growled above.

Cy was there too muttering about strange readings, "This makes no sense,"

"what doesn't?" he remembered asking. A red eye in the dark glanced at him then back to the sky.

"I'm getting all kinds of noise of this thing. Hawking radiation, gravitational waves, trace exotic elements and…no," one eye narrowed.

"what?" the red eye stared back at him and a cold shiver split down his back.

"It's like a thousand black holes opening and closing in the sky. It's like their flickering on an off up there."

Cold.

The wind was cold now and the lighting stabbed harder and the thunder roared louder and suddenly it felt as if the sky itself might collapse.

"Why is there no rain." Whispered Star next to him, voice warm and harsh in his ear, "There should be rain."

Then as if in answer to all their fears something made of metal and wreathed in billowing, boiling smoke descended from the black. Its hull burned, still cooling from the scorching winds of Hyperspace. Black shinning metal lit by violet flames.

The shockwave of its emergence split the sky and cleared the storm in a shriek so loud every window shattered, cars and people were sent hurling and skyscrapers bent like trees in the gale.

Then there was silence. Nothing but peace. The glorious moment between sanity and madness.

In a flash of white searing light, _She_ appeared before them. A towering metal goddess. Armor polished to a mirror shine that seemed to glow with the captured fire of the forge. She was beautiful and terrifying and magnificent. She was War incarnate, and she was smiling at them. A smile that would haunt his every dream. And then she spoke in a voice as quiet rustling sand and yet as loud as the roaring thunder.

"Surrender," A command, simple and to the point. he had thought of it then and there, just laying down his staff and bowing his head.

"Titans!" he screamed over the roar of alien cannons, "Go!"

She had grinned, a grin filled with mad glee. She raised her sword, so sharp and keen.

Strike, parry, strike. Hold the weight.

Strike, parry, strike and dodge. Take the pain.

He'd licked the blood that trickled from his nose and she'd wiped her mouth. Circling each other as his friends battled winged demons that swarmed around them.

"Surrender?" a question this time.

He spat a gob of blood at her feet, "Never."

She had seemed sad at that. Again, she raised her sword, "As always," he'd heard her whisper.

He remembered the day well. He picked over it through the years. Like an old well-worn shirt. He had never been happier, standing under the falling sky with friends at his side and the taste of her kiss on his lips. And then he remembered all the days that followed.

The day their city surrendered. Wreathed in epic fires with mutated horrors parading down its streets. Humans made to kneel and toil.

The day the watch tower fell burning and they marched all the way to The Rockies.

The day they started calling this a war.

The day his mentor looked down at him and ordered to him to mount an assault.

 _take the ridge at any cost._

A months long siege against the high black walls.

He remembered how it ended, when a jagged tipped pike pierced his chest and pulled him up those bloodied metal cliffs where they had made him watch the retreat as they wrapped him in chains and pulled off his mask. He remembered screaming and howling like a rabid dog as they pulled him into the dark and came asking questions.

But he was trained well, and he knew the dark well.

"Birdy?" But the dark has friends.

"Birdy?" Many friends.

"where are they, Bridy?" They came often.

"The freak and her dog? Where are they hiding," They sat beside him and whispered.

"We want them Birdy. Tell us where and we'll let a little light in." First, they came with an open hand, sweet offerings and tempting deals.

"That's all you have to do, birdy," Smooth hands caressed him. soft bodies plied themselves against his.

"The metal man, we know he's watching. Tells us where his nest is," but their voices, tender and quiet held something sharp to them. A strange echo that was deeper and meaner and it made him shudder when they spoke. He stayed quiet, so they came to him with closed fists and keen blades. they left him bleeding and crying in the dark, left him to strong hands which bound his wounds and forced him to eat and drink. They cared for him and they cut him.

He was going mad. He could feel it, at the back of his mind, rabid and ravenous, biting at his brain. He'd felt this before, long ago, when the world fell from his grip and his parents with it.

They came again.

"Where's your Tamaranean whore," they hissed, "where is the bitch hiding."

They brought fire this time. Their eyes glimmering like obsidian shards. He saw them for what they were: children turned tortures, turned mad by the war. Was he becoming like them?

"Where are they?" they hissed together. He turned his eyes up at them and through the pain and broken face he managed a smile.

"They're coming," he whispered through burnt lips, though his blistered lungs, "And when they do I will kill you all."

They left him to the dark.

Left to mutter to himself.

 _They are coming._

 _They are coming._

 _They are coming._

 _Please…_


End file.
